The following text is the suggestion of
Vangelios Dermitzakis at the event held by the KKE (M-L) on Saturday 9 March titled
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8 March 2024: We are discussing the female issue at
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Outside the walls ”
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In recent years it has been rich in unpleasant news and tragic events with victims of women. The rape and murders of women have become a daily routine. Sexual scandals in the field of art and sport involving people above criticism. The way they are treated or explained shows that nothing is self -evident or commonly accepted around the case of female liberation. On the one hand they throw responsibilities on the male sex and on the other to the female. Increasingly, the voices that justify the murderers and the victims exaggerate. The system is fascist and with affection the most reactive there is, justifies and gives it a step. Women's conquests at work and insurance have been abolished and her basic rights are threatened and disputed in various ways, such as the right to abortion. The pandemic of Coronovirus, which has caused great social and economic upheavals, the attack on the income and rights of the workers and the people, as well as the systematic effort to control and suppress youth, exacerbate its problems and multiply the crimes of all kinds at the expense of it. The EU has set up a series of programs, institutions and observatories, in the name of gender equality, so that it can pass its anti -populist policies through this path and impose cuts of rights, such as layoffs of pregnant women. The US and the EU imperialists, to control peoples, penetrate every human activity, exploit every need and use the woman as bait and victim. This side of imperialism is exported to it countries either as an ideological and cultural product or as a direct exploitation of their inhabitants…
The retreat of revolutionary and communist ideas and the defeat of the labor movement has dragged its defeat and its female part. A number of false perceptions such as: "The female movement is not needed because it is covered by the labor", "all the classics" were developed, "the woman's integration into the movement will solve the problems with the other sex on its own. "," All the issues of the woman will be resolved by the revolution "and others. Today, the bourgeois ideology that feeds feminism is dominated, which is trying to lead any women's movement appears in the spotlight. Although it fails, despite his clear support from the propaganda urban systems, to move the popular female population, which remains dumb and decommissioned, confuses the youth and seduces several pieces of the left, who do not see or do not see that they do not see that they do not see that Its modernity lies all the rotten bourgeoisie.
Nowadays there is nothing self -evident. There is a need to clarify the elementary ones, such as what the female issue is, how it appeared and above all what are the characteristics of today. Because the female issue didn't always exist. The story of the woman may be the story of her oppression but she was not conscious of her condition. She also believed that her lower position in society was a will of God, that her destination was to serve others. As long as the woman's life was limited in the family home, her enslavement within the family could, at best, cause humanitarian sympathy and various reasoning for the means that would relieve the fate of the humiliated, within the exploitative society. , female sex.
The appearance and development of the female issue is an important development of the capitalist period. There are two reasons for it. The former has to do with the phase that the bourgeoisie when claimed power and came out with slogans trying to support all the oppressed groups, the poor masses of the proletariat and of course women. The second is related to the massive entry of the woman to work in capitalist businesses. To meet the need for capital in cheap labor hands, he brought the woman to the factories, as did the children. The rights raised by the bourgeoisie during its revolutionary phase became a salaried slavery, and the liberation that promised the enlightenment theorists promised to the woman's theorists became a double harsh oppression, at home and at work. But the entry to work, the fact that she was coming out of her home, made the female worker realize her miserable position and claim human life and rights.
At that time, all members of a working family were converted into wage slaves. A young couple, in the 19th century, by moving them from a rural to an urban area, reduced their life expectancy by a decade. The conditions of her work and life are miserable, so she has to fight from a very early age. The first recorded female strike, with demands for better salary and working conditions, took place in the English city of Worster in 1804 by the workers of a factory that made gloves. As Kolondai says, "the female movement was only a result of women's integration into production".
Then, in addition to improving life conditions, the worker could not imagine that he could claim full rights with the man. Indeed, the workers' unions refused to write members of the workers. Since the mid -19th century, Marx and Engels meet with the movement of the workers who are taking his first steps, which they have gained with their ideas. They showed the way the woman had to take to improve her life until her full emancipation. They emphasized that no discussion could be made for female liberation without its financial independence. But as working on capitalism does not liberate anyone, nor the man, but on the contrary it is the basis of the alienation of the worker, so women's work in capitalism reproduces and perpetuates the inequality of the sexes. Maternity, for example, in capitalism can only "work" on the condition that the woman is excluded from work because motherhood is her primary role.
In the 19th century and early 20th century, the working woman was the worker, the woman, the poor woman. The women of the bourgeoisie and any mediums that existed at that time, as a rule did not work. The work of the worker was complementary to the man. The request was then for the woman to come out in production. Today, the landscape has changed. Women generally work. Women of all social classes and strata work. So we are not only talking about workers but workers today, which are obviously not included. In our country is dominated by de -industrialization, the destruction of the primary sector and the development of public and private services while the crisis is constantly closing in business. The bourgeoisie of the country is in search of a productive model. At present, statistics records that the woman has a high level of education and works in the services. Endless hours of work, precision, low wages, characterize work in our country and first affect women. The type of work, salary and working conditions have an impact on all aspects of a woman's life, inside and outside the house.
The woman is now an integral part of the workforce, and at the beginning of the 20th century she claimed the right to work. New forms of exploitation of the woman has invented the system. Her body, her femininity, maternity and other characteristics of the sex and the roles she is called upon to play, are either converted into commodities or press on them to sell goods.
FAMILY
For years, what dominated Greek society and educated the youth was the slogan "Father-Religion-Family". In a time, like the one we live in, everything collapses, the family seems to have remained unique. It has been spilled a lot of ink to prove that the institution of the family, despite the crisis that is going through, supports its members in difficult times, so we do not see hordes of homeless and destitute. Young people and young people, in the face of financial difficulties, continue to stay with their family. Today a man, if needed help, can only rely on himself or turn to his family. How do some people dare and say it should be dissolved? The family is still the whole world. Today, how to argue for its abolition without stoning? "Abolish the family! Even the most radicals are indignant about this shameful intention of the Communists, "Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto 177 years ago. And yet the goal remains.
The bourgeois family reflects all the contradictions and contradictions of the social system and influence its members and their relationships. Of course, if the members are bourgeois or workers, it changes certain things, but it does not change its function. A family of workers is also an urban family, where the woman depends on her husband and child on his parents. It reproduces standards and urban ideology and educates with these members. He teaches what he is.
The woman is oppressed through the roles she is called upon to play and oppress herself. Capitalism removed any work that covered the needs of the family (manufacture of clothes, food production) and left it with the "uninvited" homework that never ends, so tired and resent. She is the daily night of her life. Whatever the laws and papers, analyzes, statistics and theories say, the woman is still the slave of the house. The exceptions prove the rule. Socialist construction has tried to solve the problem with the socialization of domestic work.
Today, within feminism there is a theory that home work is the key to the production of labor force. Housewives are considered part of a global class of unpaid workers, the exploitation of which is central to the accumulation of capital. They do not consider homework as unhappy, but the basis of the capitalist organization of labor. Housewives should not be related to the workers in the factories, but they can be organized worldwide, starting to control the reproduction of the labor force. Because, as men say, they control the work today, the time and the movement of their women, through family salary, women must first fight within their own families and relationships. This theory results in the request for salary to housewives and the feminist strike. According to the "99%feminist manifesto" "the production of people and the special care for their growth and prosperity are acting as a prerequisite for capitalism" so we all invite us to abstain from sex, to abstain from sex. Do not smile and not show tenderness to the faces of our family.
WOMEN'S MOVEMENT
When in 1917 the Bolsheviks took power, granted, with the first decrees, full political rights to women, the political marriage and divorce was established, prostitution was banned, homosexuality was decriminalized, abortions were allowed, abortions were abolished, It was banned from the night shift in pregnant women, etc. For their time it was unprecedented. Today all this is data. There is an equilibrium, institutionalized "equal remuneration for equal work" and numerous instructions, actions and programs of the EU ensure the elimination of all kinds of discrimination and violence against women. One would say that there are no demands for women to claim today. Of course, a series of women's conquests are lost in the context of the overall attack that the system has launched to workers and the people and they will have to win them again. One could argue that you do not need a particular formation of a female movement.
In fact, what they have given under pressure from the movements of a previous period is what capitalism could give. Double oppression at work and at home remains. Because the oppression of women does not start with the existence or not of some rights. Its roots are in class society, but each season takes other forms. That is why it is important to study the causes, forms and the consequences of female oppression today. Bebel said that "women cannot have illusions that men will help them get out of this situation, in the same way that workers have nothing to hope for the bourgeoisie." Addressing the workers, Lenin invited them to be activated, because their release from double oppression is, first of all, their own affair.
The female movement must be rebuilt as a distinct part of the labor -popular movement, and therefore much of the process is identified with the course of reconstruction of the labor -popular movement. But female has particularities and additional difficulties. He has to defend his existence, even within the female masses, to clarify his characteristics, study his story, criticize and criticize, to argue with feminism and bourgeoisie, to be tested in battles for her rights. Woman, to support her daily struggle and her confrontation with the other sex, on the basis of her opposition to the man is an expression of class contradictions, to develop arguments against the rotten dominant ideology and to reveal the multi -faceted network of control and exploitation. . This process cannot be academic. It must be alive, organized, with action and involvement of the woman of the popular strata. In this process, the woman will shake off her dominant perception of herself, which means being reinstated for the so -called "values" that are attributed to woman's relationships with society, with family, with men, with the Its function as a spouse and mother, as well as as a worker.
The anti -communist propaganda
It is obvious that the female issue and the rights of LGBTKI are used as tools to deconstruct Marxism and degrade socialism. Everyone, almost without exceptions, theorists of every trend in feminist currents are against Marx and Engels. The cursor that got up has not yet gotten up when the government has tabled the marriage of homosexual couples, which is now law. The KKE's stance has given the government's right and conservative elements, and not only, to appear as progressively and talking about the conservatism of the Left. They do everything they can to exterminate the ghost of communism that haunts them.
Today, the EFSYN newspaper is entitled "Homosexuality in the Soviet Union". It reproduces a series of Trotskyist positions that distort and slander the colossal efforts of the Bolsheviks, but especially of the Russian people, to build a new society. Trotskyism has a political form that repeats it monotonously on any subject. He praises the October Revolution, presents Trotsky as Lenin's right hand, which the two built all the good, until Stalin came, who, due to his malice and ambition to climb power, murdered and terrorized. This Trotskyist narrative has many times exploited the system to support its anti -communist propaganda. So, in 1917, the Bolsheviks decriminized homosexuality, but Stalin, in 1934, found the opportunity to invite it and began pursuing homosexuals.
Before we say about this one, we will generally say that there were problems when building socialism in the SE. And we need to recognize them and explain their causes, to draw conclusions that will help us in our struggle today. It is important on which side is criticized and why it is done. The same criticism has another function when the opponent does. After all, inside the SE The different positions on a number of issues were openly expressed. For example, the different approaches between Kolodai, Kroupskaya and Chetkin for the upbringing of children was openly expressed. Kolontai believed that the child should belong to the socialist state, Chetkin, parents and Kroupskaya, to themselves. The Chinese approached the issues of marriage, sexuality and economics, etc. We have also criticized us on aspects of the 1934 Constitution. The Chinese until 1956 criticized, but after the 20th Congress passed into the confrontation.
Indeed, in 1934, criminal punishment was decided for pedophilia and sodomism and in 1936 free abortions were banned. The reasons that led to these decisions, according to the Soviet leadership, were, for the first, the many cases of pedophilia and rape, and for the second, the huge increase in abortions. This resulted in a significant decline in births. Many men left the woman when she became pregnant, and that was another reason. Kolodai, who participated, both in the drafting of the first laws ('17 -'20) and 1936, in an interview on 17/7/1936, explains the reasons for these changes. Interesting is the point where he speaks of the need for men responsible. Characteristically, he says that "men try to avoid fulfilling their obligations. In many cases, it was especially the man who pressured the woman to have an abortion so that she would not be forced to pay for a diet. " That is why, in the debate that preceded the law passing the workplaces, women were in the majority of it, while men were more hesitant. He also explains that free abortions were allowed in the early years of the revolution, not for reasons of principle but because the conditions did not allow the young Soviet state to truly protect the mother and child. For these reasons, women's arguments are not weakened in capitalism that claim free abortions. It should be noted that there were no contraception measures at that time. Zhenotdel (Bolshevik Women's Department) had suggested in 1920 as a "temporary measure" free abortions. In general, what characterized all the laws of the Soviet state was that motherhood is a social affair and not individual.
Today we see that the solutions or "solutions" given then were the estimate that existed since 1933 that war was coming. Then it was decided to the Anti -Fascist Front and open to the Church. They were weighed in the decisions. With a distance from things today, with the knowledge of the events that followed, with the experience of the movement of a century after the conclusions of the Cultural Revolution, we can say that social issues are not resolved by administrative decisions and bans, the openings must be resolved. They sometime but they remained after the war. We also know that the revolution does not automatically erase the ideological rust, prejudices and fears that people carry. Thus, the bias that people had on these issues was real and the dislike for homosexuality most had. The rape was the punishment of the revolutionaries arrested.
There is a basic rule in historical materialism. How every season is judged by its own measures.
But since lately, many have been said about sexuality I close with some general findings as a trigger for a debate that must be opened. [1]
First of all, there is no physical sexuality. The alleged natural forms in which sexual needs are met are determined by the characteristics of society, but also the sexual needs themselves are produced by society.
Capitalism and imperialism view sexuality as a commodity that is sold and purchased like everything else, undergoes the same laws and demand laws and is also destroyed by consumption. The question is what is the function and the effects of this type of sexual culture in humans.
The sex industry that leaves a footprint everywhere does not treat sex as the means to express the particular content of relationships between individuals, but as a means for each person separately in order to escape society and as a moment of enjoyment in a life without joy and hope. It seems to have distanced itself from its social characteristics, not binding but on the contrary to separate people.
There is no concept of equality in sexual standards that the bourgeoisie is promoting. It characterizes them a relationship of sovereignty and enslavement, where the dominant is a male. Nothing is positive from the reversal of sovereignty roles.
Sexuality for the ruling class is a way of demonstrating and enforcing its power and power. The triptych "Sex - Violence - Power" is promoted everywhere, is the new fashion that plays the system, especially in youth, is the promotion of the bourgeoisie in a standard.
Prohibitions and oppression of sexuality are part of sexuality. They do not oppose it but identify it. Sexual freedom in capitalism is like all other capitalist freedoms, exist only in theory and papers.
In urban sexuality we cannot contrast a model of revolutionary, labor or Marxist sexuality. Nor in socialism, the satisfaction of sexual impulse, the erotic need will not be as simple and rough as a glass of water. In sex life, Lenin used to say, not only physical elements, but also acquired culture, play a role.
Urban theories about sexuality are dominated by reasons of desire. It has become a common place to regard sexuality as a separate from class. Thus the autonomy of desire has become one of the deeper bourgeois "truths". Such positions are contrary to materialistic perception. We need to understand sexuality as both a social and a historical relationship.
The sexual crisis and the sexual problems that seem to plague people and often take up a lot of space in youth concerns, "not solved", Kolontai wrote, "without fundamental reform of human psychology, without increasing" erotic potential. " But this mental reform depends entirely on the basic reorganization of our socio-economic relations on communist bases. "
[1] The quote that follows for sexuality is from the article "Crimes and Human Relationships in Conditions of Barbarism" published in blogs https://antigeitonies3.blogspot.com/2024/03/blog-post_47.html